This is correct.
Amazing how I and millions of others knew this wasn’t going to happen.
Well maybe if they’re “willing to allow” A.K.A. “helping”, then it shows that the resistance is not as small as some would like to believe.
Again, we pretty much knew this would happen before we went in.
It should be noted that the Oil for Food program didn’t begin until April, 1995 (UN Security Resolution 986). For four years we were blocking food and medicine from going into the country, before we decided that the best person to distribute food to the Iraqi people was Saddam Hussein, and thus allowed only him to buy food in exchange for oil. The million deaths that resulted from the sanctions were deaths which could have been easily prevented if the people had access to food and basic medicine.
The fact Saddam is partially to blame for those deaths doesn’t change the fact that the U.S. is also partially to blame and the Iraqis know it. The last 13 years have not given the Iraqi people any reason to believe that we care about them at all, which is why the Bush administration’s talk of cheering mobs welcoming us in the streets was greeted with such skepticism. You can’t fuck people over for a decade and then demand that they instantly trust and love you.
Yes, ok, we should stay in, but until when, though? Do we stay in if the situation hasn’t improved a year from now? 5 years from now? 10 years from now? It’s not that I don’t think we don’t owe the Iraqis something, but at what point are we “paid up”? We can’t stay in Iraq under these circumstances indefinately, costing who knows how much money and how many more lives. We need a plan with defined success and failure conditions, and that’s something I’m not sure that we have. O’Reilly mentioned Vietnam, and that in some ways is a good analogy. The US committment in Vietnam went on for about 15 years, in large part because we were unable to consider the possibility of losing. Something similar happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan. It’s always a temptation for a country at war to say, “Our cause is just, and in spite of these temporary setbacks, we won’t give in until we’ve achieved our goals”. That, in itself, is fine. It can even be admirable, as in the case of Britain in the Second World War. However, it can also lead to a kind of tunnel vision and an inability to objectively consider the situation.
I’m afraid we’re stuck in that position now. I’m not interested in Bush’s reelection. I don’t even particularly like the President, and I hope he’s defeated in November. I am interested, though, in finding some way out of this mess.
I think I answered that one in my first post responding to you.
gobear, this might be just a difference of opinion, but I took “l’occupant occidental” to mean not “Western occupation” but “Western occupant”, meaning that if my translation is accurate they’re angry not so much at sharing their country with someone else but with the specific people doing it (this is consistent, I think, with a few posts in this thread). Other than that it’s pretty accurate.
Well, unfortunately as I see it, the best way to get out of this mess will involve steps that will give the appearance that we’re capitulating to the terrorists.
We probably should acknowledge to that there are no WMD, and that we fucked that up. We could try and point out that the Iraqis have the potential to be far better off then when SH was around, and all our efforts from this point on will be directed towards that. We need to admit that we can’t do it this alone, and we will give up some control. Getting the world on board will add some legitimacy, and will get the heat off our back. Most importantly though, we need to give up on trying to shove an American style democracy down their throats.
I agree with you that 2 years is far too short a period in which to expect a western-style democracy to take hold in Iraq. But neither should we expect it to take 200+ years as you seem to be implying. Certainly we had a democracy in the U.S. prior to 1989 (200 years after ratification of the Constitution). It would be way more accurate to say that it took about 13 years for democracy to appear in the U.S.—the period from the end of the Revolutionary War to the ratification of the Constitution. Also, while we had to find our own way, there’s a template for building democracy in Iraq. That should also serve lessen the period of transition. Whether the Iraqi people will accept a western-style democracy created from any existing template is a whole other question and one I’m not going to address here. I’m merely telling you that the argument you’ve presented is inaccurate.
Hey guys,
I’m sure I must have missed this in my careless reading, but surely Mr. Bill said somewhere that his hero the President screwed up royally, right? And that all those peacenik terrorist loving pinkos who said this was going to be a mess were right? And that a President responsible for such a disaster, who just assumed that the Iraqis were going to love us, shouldn’t be re-elected.
I’m sure anyone with an IQ above a turnip would say that, right?
Awaiting a link. But not holding my breath.
I had thought about that, but it seemed to me that in this instance the literal translation made for bad English, so I went with “occupation.” I should think that the use of the adjective “Western” makes it clear that the Iraqis object to the nature of the occupiers more than their existence.
Yes, you did, and I apologize for not seeing and responding to that. I agree that turning stuff over to Sistani and letting his faction take over is an option, and maybe the best one under the circumstances, but I’m worried that that will almost definately lead to civil war, or at best a police state, because neither the Sunnis, be they Arab or Kurd, or Sadr’s faction believe Sistani has legitimacy.
I’m an idiot.
I should have translated occupant as “occupier,” thus preserving fidelity to the original and making the sentence as a whole flow.
Umm, the Constitutionwas ratified in 1787, right, which was about 4 years after the end of the war in 1783 (though the Battle of Yorktown was in 1781). Washington was elected in 1788, clearly after the Constitution was ratified. One might say that democracy was truly established in 1800, after John Adams peacefully turned the Presidency over to Jefferson. I certainly agree with your point, though.
I find no inaccuracies in my example, Unc.
The United States achieved democracy in a short amount of time. It was imperfect, and it took many years of closed-door, secretive sessions to hash out. Once ratified, it still wasn’t perfect, or easy to manage as it still isn’t today.
My point is that it took many more years for us to establish a democracy here-from before the revolutionary war until ratification in 1789-and to attempt to hold them to an accelerated schedule is asking way too much.
You can choose to disagree.
Sam
Ratification year aside(yikes! what would my Poli Sci teacher say?), Voyager brings my point about inadvertantly. We’re talking about a process that in our country under more ideal circumstances(though not much more ideal I admit), we got our democracy up, running, and lots of kinks out of it in just under 20 years.
On the timeline, Iraq is merely a blip near the left end, while the year 1800 is America at the far right. And I only said “200 years”, because in my opinion, the state of a Republican Democracy is an ever-evolving beast that is never complete. If that is what you take issue with, Unc. then I will concede that to you.
Sam
The Iraqi people have failed us. After all we’ve done for them, the selfless sacrifices we have made, they have proven themselves unworthy. We offer them the opportunity to sit about the fire…Shia, Sunni, Kurds, and all…under the watchful and vigilant gaze of our protection, and join hands in a rousing chorus of “Kumbaya”…and they failed. Just no other way to say it.
It takes a rare intelligence, like Mr. O’Reilly’s, to brave the firestorm of liberal media rebuke in order to say what must be said: that our Fearless Leader’s noble effort has been scorned in a display of national ingratitude. Clearly, our efforts are wasted on such as these, there is no point in any hand-off of “soveriegnty”, one simply does not give a loaded pistol to a retarded child.
But one more full measure is required, one more sacrifice: renounce this silly nonsense of handing over governance. Regretably, we must base our troops for the forseeable future in this surly and ungrateful nation, and husband thier resources with a firm hand. Fortunately, we have many here who have great expertise in the matter of petroleum, I have little doubt they will manfully shoulder the burden, and have every reason to expect a grateful nation will reward thier patriotism appropriately.
Surely, the landslide that sweeps Bush into re-election will usher in a golden age of global harmony, as the world showers approval on us, the beloved of the nations, the Shining Citadel on the Hill.
And I? I am the Queen of Romania.
I’d take honorable exception on this point, Sam. I’m not sure what would define ideal/optimal conditions, mind. Even though our founders pretty much made it up as they went along, the driving impetus was still solidly homegrown. Dismantling the old system grew out of it’s own soil, so to speak, and so did the nature of the new system.
It’s not even remotely analagous to the situation in Iraq. In this case, outsiders forcibly removed an admittedly awful ruler, but without apparently the slightest clue as to even a framework for a workable new system. Iraq is whipsawed by internal tribal and religious factions, not to mention the horrendous push/pull of outside forces. As bad as the old system was, crafting a workable new system first must find at least some tenuous cohesion among the people who live under it. Otherwise it amounts to an prolonged, deathly, futile occupation. That has always been the serious problem, but one Bush Etc. underestimated badly.
That’s the point where I find Iraq a crucial, legitimate issue in this election. God knows that war and too much else has been reduced to little more than partisan political fodder. Iraq is much more than just Bush’s stupid war. It’s a real, volatile hazard to regional and world stability, with huge consequences for many people. I find it repellent when it’s turned into something little more than a football tossed around in the Pubbies vs. Dems grudge match, with cheering and jeering sections on cue.
But then I’m an independent, albeit one who’s convinced a chimp could display more enlightened statesmanship than BushII.
While it might not be the best analogy, it’s the best I can think of when it comes to tearing downt he old and rebuilding the new. And I agree with you 100% about the war, our involvement and our efforts to “rebuild”, and attempt a western-style democracy in a hostile country.
I’m not sure what defines optimal, either. I’m here, not in Iraq, or in young America. All I really meant was that despite growing tensions between the founding fathers and the mother country, and a looming war with said parent country, people weren’t running into the Continental Congress and blowing themselves up mid-speech. 
Sam
I never waste any time listening to O’Reilly, but am I to understand he’s saying that giving up in Iraq would help Bush’s reelection bid?
If so, he’s even dumber than I thought. Bush’s “defense of America” is supposed to be the centerpiece of his campaign. Running out with tail between legs would surely be the end of him.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Sorry for going OT but does anyone else think that the Paris subway bomb threat (that the US brought to their attention with some vague warning) is complete bullshit? It relates to this discussion somehow, I swear 